A Sad Tale in the Cycle of Life and Death

I met George in 1st grade. He was always one of those trouble kids in elementary school, talking back to the teachers and doing what he wanted. I remember one time he came over to my house and we traded toys. He gave me his laser pointer and I gave him my squirt gun. Then one day he brought it to school and got suspended! Oh George, never had any common sense. He moved away after 3rd grade, so I suppose it was a short lived friendship but he was always one of those guys that I knew would stay in my mind forever.

Junior year in high school, I had been gone from my town for a year and had just moved back to finish my 2 years. I hung out with all my old friends, who were also friends with George. Well lo and behold George had come back! Apparently he was going to private school in our town for over a year and I hadn't even known. Well I was for sure making plans to hang out with him, especially after I learned he toked.

All of the first semester of my junior year we hung out frequently. Always going on all sorts of random adventures at the university in town. Trying to get into parties and whatnot, just whatever we could do that was fun and illegal. I had some of my craziest times at his house too. But damn, something about him and trouble, he just couldn't stay away from it.

It started out with adderall. He would always take more than his prescription said. Then by Christmas time he started with the dxm. I actually had a good time with him on New Years, walking around the colonial area of town with him and his girlfriend, high and tripping on dxm for my first time. He seemed alright though at this point. Just a guy having some fun, I really didn't think anything of it.

He was always a hard worker, in school and on the job. He had straight A's in AP classes and always had a job that he performed well at. Yet something was bringing him down. He compulsively stole things. Back a month before New Years we were hanging out and went to 711. He told me he couldn't go inside because he knew he would steal something. It was painful seeing that for me. Thus it didn't come as a surprise when he stole $1500 worth of things from his job at PacSun within a months time. Luckily they didn't press charges as long as he would pay it back, which he manged to do somehow. However, it was still sad to see this successful, genuinely nice guy doing stupid things.

He started hanging out with his girlfriend a lot more, so I rarely saw him. Then one day I got a text from his girlfriend who was 15 at the time, she was pregnant. George disappeared, I even went looking for him at his house and around the area. He came back eventually though. It was decided that the baby would be put up for adoption.

A few months later, George was still screwing up. He dropped off the radar to all his friends, and never really wanted to chill. He ended up coming over one day with the most ridiculous story. He had started doing cocaine on a daily basis to a point of addiction, and his mom found out. She sent him to a mandatory 2 week rehab at a city an hours drive away. As part of the rehab program, he had to go on exercise runs which during one of them he was fed up with the program and knocked out his training coach.

He proceeded to walk all the way home over the course of 2 days. When he got back home, he didn't have any cocaine and nearly drank himself to death. While recovering from his drunkenness in the early morning he for some unexplained reason wanted to die. He took a scythe to himself 22 times on his shoulders and arms. When he told me this I looked at his arms and shoulders, a week after it had happened, and he had .25-1.00 cm wide cuts on both his arms and shoulders. He was rushed to the hospital when him mom found him and arrived awaiting a blood transfusion. He was deceased for 15 seconds due to blood loss before being revived. He described the effect as similar to a strong hallucinogen, seeing the tunnel with a light at the end.

Mind you, I was the only person he had told this. Everyone else he told he was attacked by a cougar in the wilderness or something of that nature to explain the cuts. I was utterly shocked. Not surprised though. As mentioned, George was always that troubled kid. It was not something that could be unexpected for someone with his background. His father had abandoned him as a child, and his mother a former cocaine addict herself.

I told George he needed to set himself straight. He agreed, and for once, turned down the bowl I offered to him. I felt good, George finally had seen the consequences of his actions.

Months went by and I rarely ever saw him. I stopped by his new job at Applebee's once. He got me some nachos and we talked and shit. He was staying clean, even from weed. He had a good girlfriend, she had always been Christian and straightedge and all. But he was happy with her. I still felt good about him. I saw him a few other times for short moments, but we still hadn't hung out in months.

Fast forward to 2 weeks from today. George stopped into my work! I got his new phone number and I was gonna chill with him. He was still with his girlfriend, but he wanted to smoke once for old times sake. I was really looking forward to it, but I was putting off calling him for a few days, and then a few more days. Then yesterday, a mutual friend told me during class that he was missing. Apparently they had found a suicide note with his car when he wasn't at school. By 2:00 PM it was confirmed that he was dead.

I really don't know what to think about all of this. George was one of the nicest people I've ever known. He overcame so much difficulty in his life. I was thinking about him a lot in the past 2 weeks. How he was going to break this steady cycle of life and death. He was planning to start supporting his child even though he was not with that girl anymore. To go to college, and enjoy life. He was 2 weeks from graduating high school in the top 10 of his class.

But no. Now the cycle continues. His child will have no father, and the mother, 17, is now an opioid addict. The child will most likely have just a horrible fate as he.



Jah Bless, next bowl to my friend George.

tl;dr
One of my good friends killed himself yesterday.

 

Oh I forgot to mention that part haha. Really stoned when I wrote that.

The girl decided to keep the baby, she apparently got really attached during her pregnancy. So yeah now she's 17, has an opioid addiction, and is always looking for someone to babysit her kid.